Selected text
However, life in Rechitsa wasn't always quiet. Since 1910 pogroms [3] swept over Gomel and the surrounding towns and villages, including Rechitsa. They lasted until after the Revolution of 1917 [4]. The gangs swooped down the town, robbed and killed people and disappeared. One of my father's older brothers organized a Jewish self-defense movement [5] in 1912. It included a group of young Jewish men that were protecting people in Rechitsa from pogroms. As far as I know, nobody from my parents' families suffered from these pogroms. But it had their affected on their further life in a way. I remember an incident from the 1960s. My mother's neighbors renovated their house and rolled an empty barrel down the stairs past her apartment. It made such a noise that my mother screamed, 'Pogrom!'. The fear of pogroms was somehow in their blood forever.
The self-defense group chased the gangs away from the village several time. At that time, in 1912, my father's brother was 18. Later he had to run away from the town to avoid revenge from the bandits. In the 1920s he left for America and changed his name to Fisher. He lived in Philadelphia and then in Baltimore. In the 1930s we received a letter from him via the Red Cross. At that time it was dangerous to receive a letter from relatives abroad [6]. My family put the letter away and then it got lost somehow. We've had no contact with my uncle ever since. Two of my father's brothers died from spotted fever in the 1920s, during the Civil War [7]. I don't know their names or the ones of the other sisters and brothers. I only knew one uncle on personally: Juda Pisarenko, born in 1894. He lived in Voronezh before the war and had three sons. His sons became doctors. In the early 1970s my uncle's family emigrated to the USA, and I've had no information about them ever since.
My grandfather Avrum died in 1915, and my grandmother Broha-Shyma died a year later.
The self-defense group chased the gangs away from the village several time. At that time, in 1912, my father's brother was 18. Later he had to run away from the town to avoid revenge from the bandits. In the 1920s he left for America and changed his name to Fisher. He lived in Philadelphia and then in Baltimore. In the 1930s we received a letter from him via the Red Cross. At that time it was dangerous to receive a letter from relatives abroad [6]. My family put the letter away and then it got lost somehow. We've had no contact with my uncle ever since. Two of my father's brothers died from spotted fever in the 1920s, during the Civil War [7]. I don't know their names or the ones of the other sisters and brothers. I only knew one uncle on personally: Juda Pisarenko, born in 1894. He lived in Voronezh before the war and had three sons. His sons became doctors. In the early 1970s my uncle's family emigrated to the USA, and I've had no information about them ever since.
My grandfather Avrum died in 1915, and my grandmother Broha-Shyma died a year later.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
efim pisarenko